


Badger Baiting

by thankyoufinnick (mildred_of_midgard)



Series: Mags-verse AUs [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 17:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10036472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildred_of_midgard/pseuds/thankyoufinnick
Summary: AU where Johanna convinces Finnick to mentor her, makes it out, and learns the price of victory.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm *hoping* to finish this AU. There are actual badgers planned. But editing _Mags' War_ and _Mags' Heir_ is taking up all of my time (330,000 words, yo!), so I guess have this while you wait, and send cheers if you want to see more. Cheers are very motivating!

“I want in the Career pack.”

The girl standing with her hands on her hips and chin jutting out is small and dark, from one of the outlier districts.

Finnick sorts through his memory like a deck of cards. Memorizing faces and names is one of his mandatory skills. District Seven. The name will come to him.

Mags barely spares her a glance, but Finnick knows she’s taking in just as much information as he is. “You’ll need to take that up with your mentor.”

The girl spits, abrupt and accurate, on the floor. “Have you met my mentor?” Her lip curls. “Or do you live in a little bubble where all the victors have their shit together?”

Johanna. That’s her name. But she's right and wrong about Blight. He may be a heavy drinker who's never brought a victor home, but he's gotten tributes into the Pack before. So if she's here making her case with District Four, she failed to convince him.

“I’m from District Seven,” Johanna argues, turning from Mags to Donn and then to Finnick, looking for an opening. “We all have survival skills. I grew up outdoors. I can even swim, and no one in Seven can do that.”

“How many kills do you have?” Donn asks.

Rhetorical question, except Johanna catches Finnick looking at her, and her eye flickers at him while she moves her index finger on her thigh. One tiny, deniable gesture.

His interest immediately flares. So she’s got one kill she can’t admit to.

“How many do any of you have going in?” Johanna challenges, out loud. “I didn’t know fish counted.”

And she’s got them there. Career training isn’t something any of them can admit to. Finnick wonders if anyone else saw that finger move.

“I grew up with enough to eat. I’ve got stamina. I’m not going to collapse in the first hour. I won’t swoon at the sight of blood.”

She’s being canny, selling herself as a credible pack member without giving away too many skills that’ll make her seem like an immediate threat. All Seven’s credible threats get taken out in the bloodbath.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you, dear,” Mags tells her with real sympathy, “but the Career pack isn’t a safe haven. It’s a group of wolves that tear each other apart in a way that real wolves never do.”

“I’m bigger than you!” she flares, and Finnick chuckles loudly. It’s true, Mags is tiny, and he never stops teasing her about it. “And I know more about wolves than you. It’s not fair, going in without a real mentor. I should have been born in Four.”

Finnick’s always having crazy ideas, and that triggers another one. He grins. “Technically, I’m not mentoring this year,” he points out to the group at large, “just apprenticing. I don’t have enough experience yet to be entrusted with one of our tributes,” he adds as an explanation to Johanna.

Mags has ten years of experience with Finnick’s ideas. “Out of the question. That’s a conflict of interest. If by some miracle you did pull her out, there wouldn’t be a more hated victor than you in Four. And she could never trust that you wouldn’t get her to second place and then be satisfied to let her die so Conch or Palla could come home.”

“Chantilly brought a tribute home from District Two,” Finnick reminds his old mentor.

“She was married to a District Two victor!” Mags protests. “She’d been living in District Two for years.”

“And I barely even know Conch or Palla, and they don’t like me because all I do is show off at the academy and win at fourteen. Not a conflict of interest.”

Johanna’s studying Finnick with a look of growing hope. “Youngest victor ever, sounds more useful than what I’ve got. If it comes down to me and your tribute in the endgame, I can take care of myself. Get me to the endgame.”

“I can do it,” Finnick promises.

“No,” says Mags.

“Yes,” says Johanna.

* * *

They talk strategy in his room, because it’s the most and least privacy they’re going to get. Finnick disappearing in here with a companion is hardly a scandal. Even the fact that it’s a tribute isn’t a huge surprise: he’s twenty and she’s eighteen, and if he wants to fuck her, he’s got to do it now.

Johanna shows that she knows Capitol ways at least secondhand when she has her shirt off before the door even closes behind them.

Suppressing a smile, Finnick says gently, careful of her pride, “Whoa there. Strategy first.”

“All right.” She shrugs. “But I’ll do what it takes to survive, I want you to know that. I’m not squeamish—I may be from District Seven,” she says a little urgently, “but I’m not a prude.”

“Good to know. It’ll make things easier for you.”

Walking into the room and surveying it for the effect he wants to create, Finnick thinks about teasing her by stretching out on the bed for the conversation, but she’s one step ahead of him.

Businesslike, Johanna asks him if she should leave the shirt off for the duration or put it back on.

“Up to you,” Finnick says, with an equal outward unconcern. “I won’t be distracted, if that’s what you’re hoping,” he needles.

She snorts and pulls her shirt back on. “Not you, not when it’s life or death. You’re a victor, aren’t you?”

This girl’s got a strong personality, and she’s thinking, not panicking. That’ll work in her favor, and not only because Finnick’s getting more committed by the moment to watching her surprise everyone. She’s right and Mags is right: she’ll have to take care of herself in the endgame, no matter how much he instantly liked her better than either of his tributes.

But he’s planning to enjoy watching her do it, and give her every advantage he can.

They sit on opposite ends of his couch.

“Okay, so the first thing you need to-”

“Why are you doing this?” Johanna demands. “Do you have no district loyalty at all?”

Finnick raises an eyebrow. Apparently he’s still interviewing for the job. Good, maybe this means she won’t make it easy on her opponents either.

“Since you’re not going to trust me anyway, that doesn’t matter nearly as much as what we need to convince everyone else about why I’m doing this. See, everyone’s afraid of my contacts, and if the other tributes and their mentors think I can pull the strings to bring you back over Careers with ten times the experience and skills, you’ll be taken out faster than any beefy lumberjack who ever tried to compete.”

She folds her arms. “Well, can you or can’t you?”

He smiles pleasantly. “Not if they target you in the bloodbath. So we need to have a story.”

“Well, obviously, the only thing they’re going to believe is that you want me for sex, so we’re going to have to play up my sex appeal. I may not be good-looking,” she tells him, “but I can project confidence whether I’m feeling it or not.”

“I’ve noticed,” he says approvingly. “But no, you’ll have too much attention on you already, if your name is linked to mine. What we need to do is play on my reputation. I’m Finnick Odair, I fuck you a time or three, and then I forget about you. They need to believe I’ve forgotten about you by the time you go in there. No one can believe that I’m pulling to get you out.”

Johanna nods. “Makes sense. So that means I need to look like your other lovers.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry, but that means two things that you’re not. Desperate, and forgettable. Are you up for a little playacting?”

She looks at the floor, works her lips with her teeth, and then looks him straight in the eye. Her eyes are fierce and black. “Yes. If it means staying alive. If you’re chasing me, they’ll think you want me back.”

He nods. “Whereas if you’re chasing me, I indulge you for a couple days because of my well-known 'no such thing as bad sex' policy, but after that I don’t care what happens to you.”

“The arena’s a little extreme for dealing with an ex!”

“But effective.” Finnick winks outrageously.

“All right. But that means one more thing: I don’t deliver until I get back. If you want me,” Johanna challenges him, “you’ll have to earn me.”


End file.
